Sleep Struggles

I am definitely not one of those mothers that thinks that their child is perfect. Of course I think that he is brilliant, histerical, and handsome; but, I realize that he has his flaws. :) One thing that he has always been exceptional at, however, is sleeping. Really... he has totally spoiled me by taking long naps and sleeping 11-12 hours at night since he was 4 months old. I have never had to rock him or pat his back to get him to sleep. We just say our prayers and he blissfully falls into a sound sleep.

All of his perfect sleep patterns came to a drastic hault after returning from New York, however. I have never been a fan of the "family bed" method, and have done everything in my power to prevent him from sleeping in our bed. Well... whenever we are out of town, it is just easier for him to sleep with us. It has never really caused any problems before. This time, for some reason, after sleeping with us for 5 nights, he decided that he should sleep with us every night at home. Every night (since we got back home) he has fought us about bedtime and woken up to get into our bed in the middle of the night. For the first few nights I caved in. I was sick and Wade was out of town. I just wasn't up to fighting. I decided on Sunday night that enough was enough. He would sleep in his bed all night no matter what (even if it killed me).

He pitched a fit on Sunday night and it took 30 minutes to get him to sleep. He woke up at 4 am and came into our room. We went round and round for 2 hours. I put him back into his room and put a baby gate outside of his door. 5 minutes later he had Harry Houdini'ed his way out of the gate and was standing in my bedroom. I took away his stuffed animal, I begged him to stay in his bed, and threatened him with spankings. Finally, at 6:15, Wade & I were completely exhausted and consented to allowing him to sleep on his napmat on the floor next to our bed.

Last night he finally slept all night in his bed. Thank you, Jesus! Now if only he will continue on his streak, all will be right with the world again. :)